[Mkguild] Divine Travails of Rats - Pars IV. Infernus (f)

[C. Matthias]

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Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats
by Charles Matthias and Ryx

Pars IV: Infernus

(f)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR

The rat saw no more than that before Qan-af-årael 
pulled him back down. The Åelf pushed him 
downward and leaned over, pressing their foreheads together as before.

Be careful, Charles. We do not want to be seen.

That's a Keeper they're torturing!

I know. But listen to what they say.

Listen, how?

Even as he thought the question, the various 
clicks and chirps that could be heard even 
through the Keeper's howling anguish suddenly 
seemed full of words. And not just single words, 
but entire sentences laid atop one another like 
quilts on a bed. The words felt clipped and 
precise, offered each as an assessment bereft of 
emotional touch. Cold and uncaring, they betrayed 
a detached inhumanity that was in some ways worse 
than the clicks or their appearance.

The progression of the disease has not affected 
the projection of the subject's larynx. The 
subject displays control over volume but can no 
longer produce discernible sounds.

The collapse and failure of the lungs will 
proceed once all tone has been lost. Notice the 
manner in which the subject attempts to crawl. 
The distinct limp in its rear left limb indicates 
a possible source of necrosis. A sample will be necessary to be certain.

I concur, a sample will be necessary to be certain.

Before we proceed with the sample, notice the 
slight protuberance on the subject's back above 
the tail. It has attempted to hide this from us 
by turning away from us, but a spasm of pain 
followed the application of pressure to the hips. Observe.

The Keeper howled in renewed grief, a pitch that made Charles tighten his eyes.

The protuberance is quite real. I suspect that it 
indicates a new direction for the disease. 
Normally such growths would appear on the rib 
cage first. Could there be an abnormality in the 
subject's biology that would produce such anomalous behavior?

We will require a sample to be certain, and a 
thorough test of the chest area to ensure that no 
protuberances aren't hidden by the coat of fur. 
The best indication will be the rictus of pain 
and howl we witnessed a moment ago when the tumor on the back was distended.

Let us proceed then with haste.

Charles found his paw wrapping about his 
Sondeshike. The cool metal felt good in his palm, 
and the coursing of power between flesh and 
weapon invigorated him. He trembled beneath 
Qan-af-årael's arms, eager to break theirs.

The screams continued, sometimes muted and tired, 
other times refreshed and with such an exquisite 
peal that the rat began to weep in frustration.

The advance of the disease has entered into the 
rib cage. The reaction of the subject indicates 
several areas of intense localized pain which can 
only be caused by the growth of tumors from 
within the marrow of each rib. I postulate that 
at our next observation they will have fully 
developed and the subject will be incapable of 
touching its chest without crippling agony.

We will need to be certain because the 
infestation of the ribs cannot proceed without 
the concomitant consumption of the lungs.

Agreed. A regenerative will be required in order 
to check certain advances of the disease so that 
these new developments can be more fully 
explored. Administer oral regenerative but 
isolate the area of the back where we observed the anomalous protuberance.

Charles finally quivered enough to break his 
connection with the Åelf. “Enough!” he hissed 
through the holes he'd chewed in his cloak.

No sooner was the word out of his muzzle came his 
regret. For the clicking and chirping stopped and 
the footfalls, bizarrely common and 
human-sounding, resumed, but with greater urgency 
and in their direction. Charles glanced at the 
Åelf but Qan-af-årael only appeared more 
determined, his normally peaceful countenance 
radiating both a calm assurance and a bitter 
resolution. Charles tightened his grip on his 
Sondeshike while looking to see if there was 
anywhere they could flee. The last place he 
wanted to begin a fight against strange enemies was in a corner.

As the almost rhythmic clicking and footfalls 
grew closer, Charles realized that they were more 
in front of him than to their left. And so he 
slipped out from beneath the Åelf's touch and 
crept around behind the wall toward the left. His 
steps made no noise, even as his tail uncurled 
from his lap and his cloak fell from his jaws. 
And though he feared these beasts could hear 
things beyond his ears, they did not seem to change direction.

Qan-af-årael followed behind him. Charles paused 
at the edge of the wall for only a moment before 
dashing across the open space toward the next pit 
and protective wall. The clicking-things turned 
as one toward him and moved with greater 
intensity. Charles chanced a look behind him and 
saw his Åelf protector remaining behind, 
long-fingered hands crafting something invisible between them.

If Charles was to be distraction, then he would distract.

The rat leaped up into the air, unleashing his 
Sondeshike to its full length, and striking the 
tip against the wall. He expected a shattering of 
stone. All he received was a small blossom of 
sparks and a resounding, but hollow-sounding, 
thunk as of a child striking the stone of a wall 
with a bar of pot-metal. The insect creatures 
turned toward him, stretching out all eight of 
their limbs and waving their mandibles. At twenty 
paces distant, he saw that they were easily twice 
his height and more, whose long legs were 
actually jointed backward at such an angle that 
if they stood up straight they would have gained 
another eight feet in height. A swollen, greasy 
yellow abdomen hung between those legs, the end 
of which oozed a puss-white miasma that trailed 
along behind them, drying into the floor like wax.

The creatures paused for one moment when they saw 
him before bending their legs down further and 
leaping into the air with the unexpected, and 
startling, speed of fleas leaping from a hound. 
Charles dove to the side, rolling quickly with 
all the speed of the Sondeckis, and slashed up 
and back, where the monstrosities would come 
down, as he tumbled expertly to his paws. The 
insects crunched into the ground only a few feet 
behind him and the deadly steel of his Sondeshike 
whacked hollowly when one of the insects batted 
his swing aside with one of its arms. Spittle 
from the frothing mandibles stung his face as it 
hove over him, a breaker towering over the shore 
a moment before falling in a crush of water and foam.

Charles dashed further into the room between two 
of the pits. He half turned and began spinning 
the Sondeshike hand over hand so it would form an 
impenetrable disk. Keeping that at his side while 
he ran caused his steps to turn inward, but he 
had no time to fret as the monsters leaped again. 
One landed directly ahead of him and the rat 
bounced off the bulbous abdomen, the Sondeshike 
clattering from his hands. The steel did not ring 
with the bell-like purity Charles knew; it 
rattled as if it were a bar of mere tin, 
skittering to rest against the lip of a pit 
nearby. He felt sharp claws grasp his arms, 
shoulders, sides, and legs, lifting him into the 
air. He struggled and lashed with his tail but no other limb could he move.

He screamed as the insect-thing lifted him toward 
its mandibles. But the jagged saw-toothed face 
did not grasp him. Rather the long antennae 
brushed across his face and chest, sending a 
shiver racing through his flesh and fur. Charles 
screamed louder, throat raw in moments from both anger and fear.

The other insect ran its limbs across his pants 
and cloak, rending with care and precision, never 
once biting into the flesh beneath. Charles 
gasped, yanked, tugged at each of his limbs and 
swung his tail from side to side, trying anything 
to get himself from their grasp. Even his Sondeck 
availed him nothing in the monstrous grip of the 
gardeners. Their obsidian hexagonal eyes 
glimmered with the satisfaction of having a new 
subject on which to perform their grisly contamination.

And then a child's voice cried in the distance 
and a blaze of light seared through the head of 
the insect slicing him free of his garments. A 
putrid green ichor gushed through the vertical 
gap indenting the middle of its head. The eight 
limbs shook, all their strength gone, before the 
body collapsed into a heap, toppling into the 
nearest pit. A forlorn, bovine low sounded 
briefly from below before a heavy crunch and wet 
splatter brought it to a final end.

The other insect held onto Charles with four of 
its limbs, one each on his wrists and ankles 
which he pulled until his shoulders and hips 
lanced with pain. With its four other limbs it 
began drawing out spectral objects that glimmered 
with power. They seemed a mix of sickle and 
sword, and with these it slashed and deflected 
bolts of energy erupting from the opposite side 
of the chamber. Charles could barely see any of 
it as his snout was pressed into the chitinous 
armor of its thorax. He gagged on the scent of 
filth and putrefaction that lathered its iridescent green armor.

Just as he was certain his limbs would all be 
dislocated, Charles turned his ears at the sound 
of a fiery scream. He felt a rush of heat against 
his arms, legs and tail, and then all of the 
beast's limbs went limp. Charles collapsed on the 
ground and rolled out of the way as the monstrous 
insect crumpled, a blue fire consuming it from 
behind. The abdomen erupted in a fountain of 
molten sinew before its entire form caved inward 
and smoldered a foul smelling smoke.

Charles grabbed his Sondeshike from where it had 
fallen and felt intense relief that neither he 
nor it had been touched by the mucus lathering 
both insects. His trousers were a ruin with one 
leg cut off just above his knee and the other cut 
into strips halfway up his thighs. The cloak was 
in better shape, but the corners had both been 
cleaved through, leaving it open at his paws 
unless he crouched. He swept up what pieces he 
could in one arm, and then looked around the 
chamber for the Åelf and whoever else had come to his aid.

Qan-af-årael still had a blue nimbus around his 
arms as he stepped out from their hiding place, a 
look of damaged serenity present in his eyes. A 
faint smile touched his angular cheeks when he 
saw that Charles stood, and then they looked past 
him toward the other end of the chamber.

Following his gaze, Charles stared in both relief 
and amazement at a group of six men and a single 
boy checking in each of the pits as they moved 
through the chamber. They wore scraps of clothes 
no larger than the pieces Charles grasped in one 
hand except for the boy who was garbed in 
pleasant but plain raiment adjusted for his small 
stature. He felt a strange awe when he recognized the boy.

“Wessex!” He called, his voice hollow after his screams.

The boy looked at him and nodded, but waved a 
hand to bid him wait. At the urging of two of the 
other men leaning over one of the pits, Wessex 
rushed over, drew arcane symbols in the air, and 
concentrated, lifting his arms up over his head. 
Charles marveled as up from the pit floated an 
old woman riddled with vicious red sores and 
black shriveled hands and feet. Her hair, white 
and scraggly, looked smeared with excrement. She 
was naked and for this the men averted their gaze 
while they gently grasped her arms and eased her weightless body to the floor.

Wessex and one of the other men bent over her and 
whispered little incantations. A white glow 
proceeded from their hands that settled across 
the woman's flesh. The boils and pustules 
whitened and sealed, disappearing into whole 
flesh. The black necrosis in her hands and feet 
faded, the skin and sinew taking on life again. 
Even her age seemed to retreat as if it had been 
a foul air cast out by a billowing wind. Charles 
gaped in wonder, and then approached, offering 
the scraps of cloth cut free from his pants and cloak.

One of the men, a youth of no more than nineteen, 
smiled and took the cloths from him, gently tying 
them across the woman to give her some modesty 
back. Wessex and the other healer continued their 
work for a moment more before turning to another 
pit from which one of their number beckoned. 
Charles reached out and grasped the boy on the 
shoulder. “Wessex! It's me! Charles Matthias.”

Wessex looked up the short distance to him and 
smiled. Though his body was ten years in 
appearance, he was still very short for those 
years. “I know it is you, Charles. But we have to 
rescue as many as we can from this place before 
other gardeners come. Or worse, the master 
himself.” The boy's eyes narrowed and he added, 
before shaking off the rat's hand. “You should 
not be here. I can see you still live. What they 
would have done to you... you dare not imagine. 
Stay and help us if you will, but please do not hinder us.”

Charles nodded and followed after the boy. 
Qan-af-årael walked toward them though kept at a 
subtle distance. In this pit they found an older 
man with black pustules protruding from his body. 
He lay naked, curled into a ball weeping, though 
Charles could hear nothing of what transpired in 
the pit. But once Wessex and his companion had 
levitated him past the opening the choked cries 
and whimpering filled his ears and heart.

“Do not touch him,” Wessex cautioned with a 
glance at the rat. “The sickness they torture him 
with spreads easily. Give us a moment to heal it.”

Wessex and the other healer bent over the 
quivering, suffering man and began their 
incantations. Charles stepped back several paces, 
blinked, and then moved down along the pits, 
glancing into each to see if he could find the 
other Keeper. Most of them just contained animals 
of various sizes, with horses and cows being the 
largest, to sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs as the 
smallest. He saw only a couple of other humans 
and past these he ran with a sickness in his 
heart after making sure one of the other human 
rescuers noticed him pointing them out.

Despite his best efforts, running from pit to 
pit, he could not find the Keeper he'd heard. 
Charles swore under his breath as he turned away 
from yet another pustule-laden sheep and then 
almost ran snout first into Qan-af-årael's chest. 
He gasped and bowed his head in apology. When he 
looked back up at the Åelf, he noticed a warning 
in his golden eyes. “We cannot linger here any longer. Something is coming.”

Charles blinked and lifted his ears. He heard 
nothing other than Wessex and the other healer. 
“But there are so many who need help here.”

“Not even your friend can save them all. Look how 
many they are and how desperate. If you wish to 
pass through this place without becoming one of 
its victims, you must not linger any longer. You 
have helped save one, but you cannot save any more.”

“He's right,” Wessex announced as he climbed to 
his feet. The older man crumpled on the floor was 
free of his sores and taking short, shallow 
breaths as he flexed his muscles. The other 
healer wrapped one of the last of Charles' scraps 
across his waist to give him the dignity of a 
loincloth. “Something is coming. One of the chief 
gardeners. None of us can be here when it 
arrives. We have only minutes.” He narrowed his 
eyes and stared at Qan-af-årael. “I do not know 
how you know these things. You don't belong here either.”

“I am guarding and guiding Charles. He is the reason we are here.”

Charles grimaced. “My son was taken from me and 
I'm here to find him and bring him back if I can. 
If not, then I am here to say goodbye. Either 
way, I must find him. He is Beyond, which means 
we need to find the bridge to the next realm.”

Wessex shook his head. “I do not know what you 
mean by bridge or next realm. Beyond... the 
gardeners are very cautious to deny anyone that 
surcease. They will keep you at the point of 
death for thousands of years if they can. As if 
years mean anything here.” He turned to his 
companions and waved them closer. “We have to 
leave now. Tell any you see on our way that we 
are sorry and will be back for them soon. Let us take these two to safety.”

Wessex wasted no more words, and none of his 
companions offered them anything other than a 
hard glance. Charles and Qan-af-årael fell in 
behind them as they headed back the way they'd 
come. Charles turned his ears at a faint whumping 
sound coming from the other direction. The chief 
gardener? He shuddered and kept walking.

They reentered the stone passage and continued 
down the other fork. It turned to the right 
before opening out on another chamber. This was 
filled with small cages stacked one atop the 
other. Little creatures like mice, moles, rats, 
and birds were housed therein each in a state of 
distress; only a few showed interest in them. 
Through this chamber they passed unmolested and 
came to another similar chamber but with larger 
cages, this filled with animals more the size of 
cats and ferrets as well as many more that he did not recognize.

After two more similar rooms they came to one 
with more pits. But these pits were thirty or 
forty paces across and housed very large animals. 
Charles felt his heart stabbed over and over as 
he saw the sufferings of elephants, hippopotamus, 
rhinoceros, and even large reptiles like 
alligators, pythons, and fantastic shapes he didn't even recognize.

At the center of the room Qan-af-årael put a hand 
on Charles' shoulder and bid him stop. The rat 
let out a sudden squeak and chided himself for 
letting his anxiety get the better of him. Wessex 
turned as well, brow furrowed in a very 
child-like way. “We cannot stop here,” he hissed between his teeth.

“The bridge lies that way,” Qan-af-årael gestured 
to a passage leading off from the right. “I can feel it now.”

Wessex followed his arm and sucked in his breath. 
One of the other men with him made some sign to 
ward off evil. “That path leads toward the 
master's gardens. It is very dangerous. Few of us ever escape there.”

“It is where I must go,” Charles said with a 
sigh. “I am glad to see you are... faring well, Wessex.”

“As well as the souls of the dead can fare, you 
mean?” The boy snorted, but a real smile emerged 
on his lips. “Thank you, Charles. I'm sorry we 
did not always get along, but...” He shook his 
head and rubbed his hands together. “Just one 
question I have before you go. How are Jessica and my other students?”

“Jessica is married to Weyden and very, very 
happy. Your other students are all learning well 
enough at the guild from what I hear. But 
Jessica, she speaks of you from time to time. If 
they have a son she wants to name him after you. 
You were like a father to her.”

“And she a daughter to me,” Wessex replied, his 
smile warm and deeper than any child could 
profess. “Thank you, Charles. May your Eli 
protect you in all the dark places you must walk.”

Charles put a paw on Wessex's shoulder and then 
the two of them embraced. “Thank you,Wessex. 
Rescue every one you can. I will tell Jessica that you are well.”

“Do not let her come after me,” Wessex cautioned 
sternly. “I am dead and this is where I must serve. Good bye, Charles.”

“Good bye, Wessex.”

Gently, Qan-af-årael turned Charles away from the 
others and guided him toward the portal on the 
right through which they would find the bridge. 
Charles turned his head slightly to watch Wessex 
and his companions help the woman and old man on 
their path. He hoped they'd find their safety.

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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias
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